Midnight in the Garden

Chapter 34: Can They Save Him?

Anakin got Sereine through the security that flanked the hospital's VIP wing. The red-robed guards that had shadowed Palpatine throughout his career as Chancellor were, apparently, loyal until the end.

She went ahead to Palpatine's room alone, looking back over her shoulder once to Anakin, who loitered in the hallway.

She tapped softly on Palpatine's door.

"Enter," came his quiet, weakened croak through a comm unit mounted on the wall.

The door slid open and she stepped in -- and tried to control her reaction.

Inflamed, orange-red eyes stared at her from a face gone yellow with jaundice. His white hair had thinned alarmingly. He seemed to have lost a great deal of weight almost overnight; dark circles ringed his eyes. When he furrowed his brow, a vertical crease bisected his forehead. He half-lay, half-sat in the bed, his expression reminding her of nothing so much as a weak, angry, thousand-year-old snake.

He unfolded gnarled hands from his breast. "Come to gloat, have you?" he grated, his voice as raspy as sandpaper. "You can wipe the pity off your face. You  put me here, and you got exactly what you wanted."

Sereine lowered her head, thinking about what she had wanted -- and gotten -- that Palpatine did not yet know about. She tried to think how to answer him.

"I did get something I wanted," she said. She raised her head. "It wasn't this."

The orange-red eyes blinked once, reproachfully.

"How are you?" she said.

"How does it look like I am?" he snapped. "But I will live, it appears -- to your dismay, no doubt."

She watched the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Despite the apparent ease of his breathing, and the fact that there was no oxygen or respiratory equipment in the room, he seemed air-hungry, and weak.

"Zora Sheev, I don't want you sick. Neither does Anakin. You know that. Wait a minute, I'll be right back."

She stepped to the door. Anakin had procured an old-style manual wheelchair, which he pushed across the threshold to her. The door whispered shut.

She pushed it over to the Sith's bedside. His orange eyes accused her.

"Can you get up?"

"Why?"

"Get up." She patted the seat back. "We're going to take you out for some air."

Palpatine stared up at her. Finally, he stirred and struggled free from the bedclothes. Sereine steadied him on his feet and helped him into a robe. He settled into the wheelchair and she reached down and put her hands on his shoulders.

He twisted them free of her. A shudder of pure revulsion swept reflexively down his back.

Sereine saw, and her heart sank.

Anakin waited until she had wheeled him past, heading for the VIP solarium, before he turned on the red guards.

"I think all of you know my power," he said, one hand on his lightsaber. "If I can defeat him, think what I might do to you."

Six red masks stared back at him.

He lowered his voice. "Chancellor Palpatine will be going somewhere with us. If any one of you suggests that there was anything improper in this ..."

He let his words trail off. He gripped the handle of his lightsaber and shook it threateningly at his waist.

The six guards said nothing. Anakin turned and strode out to the solarium.